Alas, good friend, what profit can you see
In hating such a hateless thing as me?
There is no sport in hate where all the rage
Is on one side: in vain would you assuage
Your frowns upon an unresisting smile, 5
In which not even contempt lurks to beguile
Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate.
Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate!
For to your passion I am far more coy
Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy 10
In winter noon. Of your antipathy
If I am the Narcissus, you are free
To pine into a sound with hating me.
FRAGMENT OF A SATIRE ON SATIRE.
(Published by Edward Dowden, “Correspondence of Robert Southey and
Caroline Bowles”, 1880.)
If gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains,
And racks of subtle torture, if the pains
Of shame, of fiery Hell’s tempestuous wave,
Seen through the caverns of the shadowy grave,
Hurling the damned into the murky air 5
While the meek blest sit smiling; if Despair
And Hate, the rapid bloodhounds with which Terror
Hunts through the world the homeless steps of Error,
Are the true secrets of the commonweal
To make men wise and just;… 10
And not the sophisms of revenge and fear,
Bloodier than is revenge…
Then send the priests to every hearth and home
To preach the burning wrath which is to come,
In words like flakes of sulphur, such as thaw 15
The frozen tears…
If Satire’s scourge could wake the slumbering hounds
Of Conscience, or erase the deeper wounds,
The leprous scars of callous Infamy;
If it could make the present not to be, 20
Or charm the dark past never to have been,
Or turn regret to hope; who that has seen
What Southey is and was, would not exclaim,
‘Lash on!’ … be the keen verse dipped in flame;
Follow his flight with winged words, and urge 25
The strokes of the inexorable scourge
Until the heart be naked, till his soul
See the contagion’s spots … foul;
And from the mirror of Truth’s sunlike shield,
From which his Parthian arrow… 30
Flash on his sight the spectres of the past,
Until his mind’s eye paint thereon —
Let scorn like … yawn below,
And rain on him like flakes of fiery snow.
This cannot be, it ought not, evil still — 35
Suffering makes suffering, ill must follow ill.
Rough words beget sad thoughts, … and, beside,
Men take a sullen and a stupid pride
In being all they hate in others’ shame,
By a perverse antipathy of fame. 40
‘Tis not worth while to prove, as I could, how
From the sweet fountains of our Nature flow
These bitter waters; I will only say,
If any friend would take Southey some day,
And tell him, in a country walk alone, 45
Softening harsh words with friendship’s gentle tone,
How incorrect his public conduct is,
And what men think of it, ‘twere not amiss.
Far better than to make innocent ink —
GOOD-NIGHT.
(Published by Leigh Hunt over the signature Sigma, “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1822. It is included in the Harvard manuscript book, and there is a transcript by Shelley in a copy of “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1819, presented by him to Miss Sophia Stacey, December 29, 1820. (See “Love’s Philosophy” and “Time Long Past”.) Our text is that of the editio princeps, 1822, with which the Harvard manuscript and “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, agree. The variants of the Stacey manuscript, 1820, are given in the footnotes.)
1.
Good-night? ah! no; the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite;
Let us remain together still,
Then it will be GOOD night.
2.
How can I call the lone night good, 5
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?
Be it not said, thought, understood —
Then it will be — GOOD night.
3.
To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light, 10
The night is good; because, my love,
They never SAY good-night.
BUONA NOTTE.
(Published by Medwin, “The Angler in Wales, or Days and Nights of Sportsmen”, 1834. The text is revised by Rossetti from the Boscombe manuscript.)
1.
‘Buona notte, buona notte!’ — Come mai
La notte sara buona senza te?
Non dirmi buona notte, — che tu sai,
La notte sa star buona da per se.
2.
Solinga, scura, cupa, senza speme, 5
La notte quando Lilla m’abbandona;
Pei cuori chi si batton insieme
Ogni notte, senza dirla, sara buona.
3.
Come male buona notte ci suona
Con sospiri e parole interrotte! — 10
Il modo di aver la notte buona
E mai non di dir la buona notte.
ORPHEUS.
(Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862; revised and enlarged by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.)
A:
Not far from hence. From yonder pointed hill,
Crowned with a ring of oaks, you may behold
A dark and barren field, through which there flows,
Sluggish and black, a deep but narrow stream,
Which the wind ripples not, and the fair moon 5
Gazes in vain, and finds no mirror there.
Follow the herbless banks of that strange brook
Until you pause beside a darksome pond,
The fountain of this rivulet, whose gush
Cannot be seen, hid by a rayless night 10
That lives beneath the overhanging rock
That shades the pool — an endless spring of gloom,
Upon whose edge hovers the tender light,
Trembling to mingle with its paramour, —
But, as Syrinx fled Pan, so night flies day, 15
Or, with most sullen and regardless hate,
Refuses stern her heaven-born embrace.
On one side of this jagged and shapeless hill
There is a cave, from which there eddies up
A pale mist, like aereal gossamer, 20
Whose breath destroys all life — awhile it veils
The rock — then, scattered by the wind, it flies
Along the stream, or lingers on the clefts,
Killing the sleepy worms, if aught bide there.
Upon the beetling edge of that dark rock 25
There stands a group of cypresses; not such
As, with a graceful spire and stirring life,
Pierce the pure heaven of your native vale,
Whose branches the air plays among, but not
Disturbs, fearing to spoil their solemn grace; 30
But blasted and all wearily they stand,
One to another clinging; their weak boughs
Sigh as the wind buffets them, and they shake
Beneath its blasts — a weatherbeaten crew!
CHORUS:
What wondrous sound is that, mournful and faint, 35
But more melodious than the murmuring wind
Which through the columns of a temple glides?
A:
It is the wandering voice of Orpheus’ lyre,
Borne by the winds, who sigh that their rude king
Hurries them fast from these air-feed
ing notes; 40
But in their speed they bear along with them
The waning sound, scattering it like dew
Upon the startled sense.
CHORUS:
Does he still sing?
Methought he rashly cast away his harp
When he had lost Eurydice.
A:
Ah, no! 45
Awhile he paused. As a poor hunted stag
A moment shudders on the fearful brink
Of a swift stream — the cruel hounds press on
With deafening yell, the arrows glance and wound, —
He plunges in: so Orpheus, seized and torn 50
By the sharp fangs of an insatiate grief,
Maenad-like waved his lyre in the bright air,
And wildly shrieked ‘Where she is, it is dark!’
And then he struck from forth the strings a sound
Of deep and fearful melody. Alas! 55
In times long past, when fair Eurydice
With her bright eyes sat listening by his side,
He gently sang of high and heavenly themes.
As in a brook, fretted with little waves
By the light airs of spring — each riplet makes 60
A many-sided mirror for the sun,
While it flows musically through green banks,
Ceaseless and pauseless, ever clear and fresh,
So flowed his song, reflecting the deep joy
And tender love that fed those sweetest notes, 65
The heavenly offspring of ambrosial food.
But that is past. Returning from drear Hell,
He chose a lonely seat of unhewn stone,
Blackened with lichens, on a herbless plain.
Then from the deep and overflowing spring 70
Of his eternal ever-moving grief
There rose to Heaven a sound of angry song.
‘Tis as a mighty cataract that parts
Two sister rocks with waters swift and strong, 75
And casts itself with horrid roar and din
Adown a steep; from a perennial source
It ever flows and falls, and breaks the air
With loud and fierce, but most harmonious roar,
And as it falls casts up a vaporous spray
Which the sun clothes in hues of Iris light. 80
Thus the tempestuous torrent of his grief
Is clothed in sweetest sounds and varying words
Of poesy. Unlike all human works,
It never slackens, and through every change
Wisdom and beauty and the power divine 85
Of mighty poesy together dwell,
Mingling in sweet accord. As I have seen
A fierce south blast tear through the darkened sky,
Driving along a rack of winged clouds,
Which may not pause, but ever hurry on, 90
As their wild shepherd wills them, while the stars,
Twinkling and dim, peep from between the plumes.
Anon the sky is cleared, and the high dome
Of serene Heaven, starred with fiery flowers,
Shuts in the shaken earth; or the still moon 95
Swiftly, yet gracefully, begins her walk,
Rising all bright behind the eastern hills.
I talk of moon, and wind, and stars, and not
Of song; but, would I echo his high song,
Nature must lend me words ne’er used before, 100
Or I must borrow from her perfect works,
To picture forth his perfect attributes.
He does no longer sit upon his throne
Of rock upon a desert herbless plain,
For the evergreen and knotted ilexes, 105
And cypresses that seldom wave their boughs,
And sea-green olives with their grateful fruit,
And elms dragging along the twisted vines,
Which drop their berries as they follow fast,
And blackthorn bushes with their infant race 110
Of blushing rose-blooms; beeches, to lovers dear,
And weeping willow trees; all swift or slow,
As their huge boughs or lighter dress permit,
Have circled in his throne, and Earth herself
Has sent from her maternal breast a growth 115
Of starlike flowers and herbs of odour sweet,
To pave the temple that his poesy
Has framed, while near his feet grim lions couch,
And kids, fearless from love, creep near his lair.
Even the blind worms seem to feel the sound. 120
The birds are silent, hanging down their heads,
Perched on the lowest branches of the trees;
Not even the nightingale intrudes a note
In rivalry, but all entranced she listens.
FIORDISPINA.
(Published in part (lines 11-30) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; in full (from the Boscombe manuscript) by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.)
The season was the childhood of sweet June,
Whose sunny hours from morning until noon
Went creeping through the day with silent feet,
Each with its load of pleasure; slow yet sweet;
Like the long years of blest Eternity 5
Never to be developed. Joy to thee,
Fiordispina and thy Cosimo,
For thou the wonders of the depth canst know
Of this unfathomable flood of hours,
Sparkling beneath the heaven which embowers — 10
…
They were two cousins, almost like to twins,
Except that from the catalogue of sins
Nature had rased their love — which could not be
But by dissevering their nativity.
And so they grew together like two flowers 15
Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers
Lull or awaken in their purple prime,
Which the same hand will gather — the same clime
Shake with decay. This fair day smiles to see
All those who love — and who e’er loved like thee, 20
Fiordispina? Scarcely Cosimo,
Within whose bosom and whose brain now glow
The ardours of a vision which obscure
The very idol of its portraiture.
He faints, dissolved into a sea of love; 25
But thou art as a planet sphered above;
But thou art Love itself — ruling the motion
Of his subjected spirit: such emotion
Must end in sin and sorrow, if sweet May
Had not brought forth this morn — your wedding-day. 30
…
‘Lie there; sleep awhile in your own dew,
Ye faint-eyed children of the … Hours,’
Fiordispina said, and threw the flowers
Which she had from the breathing —
…
A table near of polished porphyry. 35
They seemed to wear a beauty from the eye
That looked on them — a fragrance from the touch
Whose warmth … checked their life; a light such
As sleepers wear, lulled by the voice they love, which did reprove 40
The childish pity that she felt for them,
And a … remorse that from their stem
She had divided such fair shapes … made
A feeling in the … which was a shade
Of gentle beauty on the flowers: there lay 45
All gems that make the earth’s dark bosom gay.
… rods of myrtle-buds and lemon-blooms,
And that leaf tinted lightly which assumes
The livery of unremembered snow —
Violets whose eyes have drunk — 50
…
Fiordispina and her nurse are now
Upon the steps of the high portico,
Under the withered arm of Media
She flings her glowing arm
…
> … step by step and stair by stair, 55
That withered woman, gray and white and brown —
More like a trunk by lichens overgrown
Than anything which once could have been human.
And ever as she goes the palsied woman
…
‘How slow and painfully you seem to walk, 60
Poor Media! you tire yourself with talk.’
‘And well it may,
Fiordispina, dearest — well-a-day!
You are hastening to a marriage-bed;
I to the grave!’—’And if my love were dead, 65
Unless my heart deceives me, I would lie
Beside him in my shroud as willingly
As now in the gay night-dress Lilla wrought.’
‘Fie, child! Let that unseasonable thought
Not be remembered till it snows in June; 70
Such fancies are a music out of tune
With the sweet dance your heart must keep to-night.
What! would you take all beauty and delight
Back to the Paradise from which you sprung,
And leave to grosser mortals? — 75
And say, sweet lamb, would you not learn the sweet
And subtle mystery by which spirits meet?
Who knows whether the loving game is played,
When, once of mortal (vesture) disarrayed,
The naked soul goes wandering here and there 80
Through the wide deserts of Elysian air?
The violet dies not till it’ —
TIME LONG PAST.
(Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870. This is one of three poems (cf. “Love’s Philosophy” and “Good-Night”) transcribed by Shelley in a copy of Leigh Hunt’s “Literary Pocket-Book” for 1819 presented by him to Miss Sophia Stacey, December 29, 1820.)
1.
Like the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past.
A tone which is now forever fled,
A hope which is now forever past,
A love so sweet it could not last, 5
Was Time long past.
2.
There were sweet dreams in the night
Of Time long past:
And, was it sadness or delight,
Each day a shadow onward cast 10
Which made us wish it yet might last —
That Time long past.
3.
There is regret, almost remorse,
For Time long past.
‘Tis like a child’s beloved corse 15
A father watches, till at last
Beauty is like remembrance, cast
From Time long past.
THE DESERTS OF DIM SLEEP. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.)
Percy Bysshe Shelley Page 37